Tiveden

Tiveden National Park was established in 1983 between lakes Vättern and Vänern, in south-central Sweden, and protects some 20 km²; it has been enlarged in recent years beyond its original extent. It forms part of the great forest of Tiveden, which historically separated the provinces of Västergötland and Närke and which functioned for centuries as a feared frontier between regions, with a reputation as a refuge for bandits.

The park protects a territory of forests, lakes and narrow fault valleys where the pine and spruce woods, the swamp forest formations and the rock outcrops are left to develop freely towards the character of primeval forest. It is an example of management by non-intervention: the aim is not to conserve a state but to allow the forest to recover its natural structure by itself.

Its most striking features are the block fields: enormous rounded granite boulders, torn loose and abandoned by the ice during the last glaciation, which pile up on the slopes and form labyrinths with trees growing among them. Formations such as Stenkälla or the Trollkyrka — the trolls' church, where tradition holds that clandestine rites were performed — combine geological with folkloric interest. The rough ground and the lack of fertile soil kept the area unpopulated, and that marginality explains why the forest has survived to the present.